I would like to ask admissions what they look for with the DHS and PTA this fall. Could be useful for next year’s crop of kids.
@momofc
I don’t understand your reasoning or disappointment with Tulane. They never represented that those phone interviews were for Stamps finalists. They were preliminary interviews.
@danman1022
I am quite sure that the Stamps finalists have already been notified. Sorry, you will just have to make do with full tuition plus fees. 
My disappointment is in that by telling my daughter that her project and academic success had qualified her for the Stamps nomination, they led her to believe that she must at least be in good standing to receive a Dean’s Scholarship. Don’t get me wrong - we take nothing for granted, including the Presidential award that she received.
Congrats to everyone who got it and I’m in the same situation @momofc. I was interviewed for the stamps that thought that meant I was at least good enough for deans or pta… Tulane went way down in my opinion too. Not sure why they would interview the top 200 for a first place award when only 125 get the second place one…
Um, maybe if you didnt get the DHS it means you are a Stamps winner (unless they’ve already been announced) ?? That wold be cool.
@jym626 It sounds like they already notified 10 DHS winners that they are stamps finalists
Bummer
@jym626
I happen to know from other people that the 10 finalists for the Stamps have already been contacted to set up their final interview.
To the others:
I don’t want to disagree while you are so disappointed, but you misunderstood the process. Well over 1,000 people apply for these awards. They interviewed the top 200 (of course that is a number that came from an interviewee, but let’s assume it is correct) in order to narrow it down to the 125 winners. Probably 75 actually since it is DHS applicants that are considered for the Stamps as I understand it and not PTA, but let’s make the scenario more generous and include PTA applicants. The 10 Stamps finalists are selected from those 125, as I understand it, and the 5 winners from those 10. It is like 5 people get their DHS awards upgraded. By definition 75 of those initial interviewees had to be disappointed because they wouldn’t win a DHS, a PTA or a Stamps.
Perhaps Tulane could have made all that clearer, I don’t know since I don’t see first hand the emails that are sent out to set up those initial interviews. I only know that given the numbers reported, it was never possible that everyone that got those interviews could win. I am genuinely sorry for your disappointment.
@momofc @Gummybearz I am sorry to hear about the false hope that Tulane gave you. I really do understand because my package arrived late and for about six hours I thought I hadn’t received an award, and it was awful. To be honest, if the number my interviewer gave me - that over 200 were invited to interview - is accurate, then Tulane likely needs to change their method. The email explicitly said that the Stamps Interview did not guarantee an award but you and I, and likely most others, read it as an implied win (not without reason). They need to either invite fewer kids that they know won’t win (75 out of 200 not getting ANYTHING extra is too many) or be upfront about the numbers. I am sure many of us thought, even in the back of our heads, that full tuition was in the bag.
@momofc @Gummybearz @StagNation I have to disagree with you on this one. There was no guarantee of an award for students who were interviewed, explicitly or implicitly. Quite the opposite.
And perhaps equally important, it seems as though virtually all of the students who had the interviews already had significant merit aid offers from Tulane of $100K or more over four years – offered on admission, without the need for a special application. That’s certainly the case for many of the students who have posted on this forum.
Something like 70 percent of the aid Tulane gave last year was merit aid. I don’t know another university – large or small, public or private – that comes close to that.
As @StagNation said, the email was explicit in saying that the interview did not guarantee an award. If students and parents went away from that assuming that it did, I don’t know what else Tulane can do differently.
@Arimom2 I understand your point, I just don’t think Tulane should tell so many people that they’re qualified for the top award, when they aren’t even qualified for the second highest.
I’d also like to add to the whole getting an initial Stamps interview doesn’t necessarily correlate with getting DHS discussion. I didn’t get an initial interview for Stamps but got DHS, so I’m inclined to think the report of 200 of the top contenders for DHS getting interviews might be a little overestimated. So for future reference- getting an interview doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get one of the top awards, and not getting an interview doesn’t mean you won’t win, either. Don’t put too much stock into the whole interview/no interview thing or take any of it for granted. 
Also, @Gummybearz – people who are qualified for the top award probably are qualified for the second highest as well- it’s just that a lot of other people are qualified for both, too, so just being qualified doesn’t necessarily mean too much in terms of ultimate outcome.
@Gummybearz - That is my point exactly. If my daughter had simply submitted a project and heard nothing from Tulane until the rejection email, we would have chalked it up to experience. My complaint is that even though the Stamps nomination states that it is not a guarantee, there is in that email an implied message that the student is one of the top group for the Dean’s scholarship. Any reasonable person could come to that conclusion. We feel that our daughter was courted a little too heavily by Tulane with big offers dangling in front of her. Her time might have been better spent on her other applications.
@momofc Completely agree with you. I feel like I just wasted all of that time getting prepared for the interview. Could have been spent on other scholarships. And @Dreamer21 I know it isn’t taken for granted, but usually an interview means you are going to get something. Especially if the interviewer tells you that the interview went well and that you have a good chance for Stamps.